Loudon just nodded, tacit apology in her eyes. Madhavari saluted them both in a casual but respectable manner, then he and the acutely silent Arevalo passed them. Ochoa followed quickly, giving the two women a nod and Palmer a firm pat on the back. He soon took the lead, of the hobbling Arevalo and Madhavari, while Landham followed.
Felina noticed that the last few inches of Madhavari’s white lab coat had been torn away, leaving behind a jagged line of bloodied fabric. She didn’t want to imagine what had happened to him; and he was lucky, too. Among all these other casualties, from the ones who died to the ones whose bodies survived but their minds lost to the Xeno carnem virus…
“You should be clear back the way we came,” Landham called over his shoulder. “Just take that side corridor and wrap around instead of heading straight there. Some carriers were herding around that corner—and I’m not talking about the ones we just killed. See you all soon.”
“Thank you!” Felina called out.
Landham nodded, and exchanged casual salutes with the other two Remoras.
Connell proceeded to lead the two women, with Palmer now at their six, down the side corridor and past the least amount of gore they had yet witnessed. Eventually they reached the security center without further dilemma, a surprise they of course hadn’t been expecting even with Landham’s words buried in their skin. Their skepticism was high regardless, which made their readiness acute to say the least.
This wasn’t something that Connell would demean, anyway. Vigilance was always key to survival, especially in a situation like this.
They arrived at the security center’s Invisi-Screen entrance and were temporarily frustrated that it wasn’t open to welcome them. But a few seconds later and the refractive plasma mirror vanished, granting them access. Standing behind it and slightly to the right was Cassel. She greeted Connell and invited them in, insisting they hurry. Cassel sealed the Invisi-Screen behind them, and said that two carriers were just around the furthest corner from them, indicating via their security camera feed against the wall. The creatures could be seen lingering there at the corner’s edge, one of them undergoing the next step of metamorphosis. Bones shifted, its jaws gaped to release some unprecedented howl, musculature expanded, carapaces replaced skin, the color sapping from its flesh.
Felina felt sick once more.
“So that’s how you knew we were out there,” Palmer said, glimpsing a security camera feed that linked to just outside the Invisi-Screen.
“Of course,” Cassel said. She shrugged, indicating the shotgun-armed Djevojka sitting in a chair behind her. “And just in case, I have her.”
Skugs stood to the side, Seighty cradled.
“Good plan.” Connell said, greeting Skugs with a nod and Wincott with a forearm-grab. He then made a beeline for the Manticore’s Spleen, followed by Palmer. As Connell reloaded, he informed Cassel that they had just made contact with Landham’s convoy and exchanged the details of their agenda.
“I assume he mentioned Keyes’ situation, too?” Cassel asked.
“Yeah,” Connell sighed. “Unfortunately.”
Meanwhile Felina joined the group of the other documenters, pleased to know and see that everyone else was unscathed.
“Have you any ideas on how to overthrow him?” Loudon asked, stepping forward, appearing unfazed about her evident wound. When Cassel tried to reach for it, suggesting she could dapple it with anesthetics, Loudon pulled back and solemnly shook her head.
“Well,” Cassel sighed, shrugging. “With Ikabu missing, only I can get us in there. Which we could do…but, considering the beasts at our door, I figure it’d be best to go as one group.”
“That sounds accurate,” Connell said. “Somewhat promising, too, if we’re all fully stocked. And healthy. Speaking of which…is anyone else harmed here?”
“None the least. Madhavari came to us, wounded as he was, but with a tail. Ochoa shot out there, after seeing what happened to Taylor earlier, he was bent out of shape to say the least. Almost got himself killed…but did so instead to Madhavari’s tail, backed up by Wincott, unfortunately not before it could get a hold of Madhavari. Hence their current plan.” Cassel took a deep breath. “Well? What about Asher?”
Connell shook his head.
“Dead?” Cassel asked, eyebrows raised.
“No,” Felina said. “Not unless he didn’t lock the door behind him like we suggested.”
“You left him in MALBO?” Cassel nearly exclaimed. “Where exactly?”
“An observation chamber. They’re all empty. He wasn’t exactly being…cooperative.”
“He hit Sabartinelli after she gave him her two-thousand cents, then I gave him a shiner.” Connell apathetically shrugged. “We said we would come back for him with more help.”
“We can’t risk that,” Djevojka said bluntly.
Cassel kneaded her brow. “She’s right. We can’t.”
“What exactly is your plan once you reach the bridge?” Palmer, who by now was next to Connell reloading, asked.
“Persuade, or subdue, the Captain…” Cassel sighed. “And then reroute the Manticore to buy us some time.”
“Time for what?” Felina asked with a bite.
“To do as you say,” Cassel said. “C&S the rest of the vessel. Only then can we risk going back for Asher.”
“I’m not so sure about that, anymore,” Skugs said, gesturing them over to one of the side security feed terminals. Everyone shuffled over there, except for Connell and Palmer, who just watched from afar while the prior helped bandage the latter’s superficial arm wounds.
The monitor displayed the entrance corridor to secondary labs, which was a basic route without any foyer or immediate rooms. Currently occupying it were over a dozen carriers led by a single healthy Xeno specimen, but they didn’t stop at the sealed auto-door that would bring them out to the main corridor. Felina recalled seeing this steel door buckled outward from the other side, the side they now watched safely via the security camera.
“They’re crossing over,” Godunov said, his voice scratchy and apprehensive. His forefinger indicated another screen to the bottom-right of the one they watched. The leading Xeno could be seen leading the carriers through a makeshift hole burrowed through the wall dividing secondary labs from the main labs’ foyer. It was here in the foyer that they watched a camera feed of the creatures pouring into from the hole. They took a moment to sniff the air and nuzzle the floor with their snouts. Some of the progressively metamorphosing carriers still had their human tongues, and thus used them to lap at the floor, although their deformed visages expressed utter confusion.
Then again, it was difficult for those speculating to discern any other emotion from such misshapen creatures.
“They’re gonna leave that foyer in a couple of minutes,” Cassel’s voice sounded hollow with trepidation, “and filter into the rest of the vessel. They’ll spread like viral wildfire.”
Her words carried a heavy sense of hopelessness and thus, as tragic as it was, truth.
“Looks like the concept of ‘buying time’ really has no merit anymore,” Calloway said, rolling his eyes. It wasn’t an expression of insult to Cassel’s plan, but an abandonment of anything that resembled light to their persisting darkness.
“What’s the progress on Madhavari and the others?” Felina asked, biting her fingernails. She resisted pacing back and forth, but couldn’t keep her subconscious from doing so.
“Let’s see,” Djevojka said, sliding across the floor on her chair to the larger cluster of security monitors. She indicated two adjacent screens, one which was blacked out, and the other that displayed the empty corridor directly outside the Infirmary. She gnawed her bottom lip, regretful. “Oh, yeah. The feed for the Infirmary is out; we believe it may have been due to damage caused by the creatures.”
“Which would mean they got to the Infirmary,” Loudon said. “So how does that affect Madhavari’s situation?”
“Doesn’t,” Djevojka said. “
Not necessarily. There are two emergency medical procedure stations in the Infirmary that can technically operate by themselves, given the person using them is literate.”
“True,” Ngo said with a nod, his voice croaking dryly. “Those EMPro stations are very easy to use.”
All eyes on him.
“I, uh, have never used one myself…but I’ve seen them in action. Very top-of-the-line, and user friendly.”
“Even if it means cutting off the user’s foot,” Palmer scoffed.
“One thing we test on here is the advancement of bioengineered prosthetics,” Cassel said reassuringly. “Whatever the case, so long as they make it back here before the carriers in that foyer spread, Madhavari will be fine.”
“Supposing the infection doesn’t spread,” Loudon said bitterly. “Tell me, Ensign, just how much do you know? Have you known, all this time?”
“Your voice has the wrong tone, Loudon,” Cassel said firmly. “Best you keep track of it.”
“Oh, I know exactly where I’m going.” Loudon stepped forward, her eyes searing. “Question is, can we trust the direction of your—”
It was surprisingly Godunov who suddenly stepped in between them.
“I think we have bigger fish to fry,” he said, “than each other.”
Felina put her hand on Loudon’s shoulder and her tacit gaze alone helped subdue the woman’s hostility. Meanwhile Godunov easily placated Cassel, and Calloway took the floor.
“I’ve already spoken with Madhavari, thoroughly, both before and during his stay in this room with us, waiting for you all to return from MALBO. And trust me—as difficult as that might be for you, Loudon—when I say that Cassel here is on our side, through and through.”
“I just want off this fucking ship in one piece,” Loudon gnashed, her disposition torn between frustration and fatigue.
“You aren’t the only one,” Cassel said. “And I want everyone to know that, when we reach the bridge, Captain Keyes is considered mutinous and thus a threat. There’ll be no shooting without provocation, and in the event of doing so, wound to incapacitate—not kill.”
Cassel’s words were laced with the blunt force of sincerity. Felina could tell as much, fortified and bolstered by her anvil gaze. To boost was the minor confusion set in everyone’s blood at the time of her explanation.
It wasn’t necessarily what she said regarding Keyes, but of the advancement to the bridge.
“So that’s the plan, then?” Djevojka said. “Make a beeline for the bridge, overthrow Keyes and take control of the Manticore? Then what?”
“Essentially, yes,” Cassel sighed. “And then what?” She shrugged, shaking her head tiresomely. “I really don’t know. But I imagine that once we’re all aboard the bridge, which will be much safer than here, we can figure that out. We’ll be fully geared up from here and have all the resources we need in there.”
So, the plan sunk into their systems.
It was easy to ingest, but digesting the reality of making such a trip against such an enemy was not even slightly easy.
“Movement!” Wincott said, indicating the security feed outside the Infirmary. “They’ve made it!”
“Out of the frying pan,” Djevojka said, her accent think and her voice low but audible. Her lips barely moved but her eyes intensified on the screen while her fingers tightened around the TG-24. “And into the fire…”
Sure enough, Madhavari and his three armed escorts were en route out of the Infirmary at the moment. For sake of speed, the amputated—below the knee, not ankle, to everyone’s surprise—Madhavari had been put into a hover-chair. It was self-operated, freeing the others to escort him without restraint to their own defenses, but was limited by speed and maneuverability.
Arevalo had their six, Seighty in hand. Landham and Ochoa were leading, a TG-24 and Seighty between them.
It was quickly noted that there was a fifth individual among them, wearing a practitioner’s uniform. To Felina’s disappointment and undoubtedly others’, it wasn’t Clara Fischer. It appeared to be a short dark-skinned man probably in his forties or fifties. Despite his age and undoubtedly the shock of fear he was experiencing, he didn’t slow them down even slightly.
Their pace was hasty to say the least.
“I should meet them halfway,” Skugs said, a voracity to kill some of those monsters evident in his disposition. Unfortunately, what drove him most was the anxiety of witnessing his comrades in danger and not being able to help.
He was halfway to the door when Cassel blocked his path and before he could retort Wincott put a hand on his shoulder.
“We cannot risk losing anyone else,” Cassel said stubbornly. “Especially one of you, SC6.”
“We’re Remoras, just along for the ride, lady,” Skugs said, scowling. His spite was unintentional and misplaced; she could detect this much.
“Not this ride, Skugs,” Wincott said calmly. “Now hold firm, they’ll make it.”
Skugs didn’t look so sure; he was already sweating profusely and from a few feet away Felina could tell his optimism wasn’t on par with his superior’s.
Meanwhile, they were forced to watch via the security feed as the Madhavari escort proceeded down the corridors. Every thirty feet or so their gazes would shift to the next monitor, like rungs down a ladder, occasionally being forced to stare at blacked-out screens where a camera along the way was inactive. Whether damaged or malfunctioning, it didn’t matter—for these sparse moments, the security center inhabitants were entirely blind.
Fortunately, this was few and far between.
Meanwhile, amid the smaller cluster of security monitors on the other wall in the room, the progress of the carriers from secondary labs could be viewed. While Landham led his cohorts along through unopposed corridors, the focal point of Felina’s attention shifted to the other monitors. She glimpsed significant movement and nudged Cassel. The Manticore’s Ensign pivoted her head and Felina saw her eyes abruptly widen.
“Oh, no,” she said, softly at first. Then her volume climbed along with her panic. “Oh, no. They’re alert! The carriers from secondary labs, they’re on the move…fast!” Cassel brought everyone’s attention to the other cluster of monitors, and Felina felt a surge of panicky chills permeate her body. She could barely see from where she stood, but those awful shapes were skittishly proceeding through the lower corridors leading away from secondary labs. The healthy Xeno specimen led the way, which alarmed her and the others all the more.
The convoy of their cohorts made great progress.
Eventually they reached the main corridor topside of where they had been, proceeding up the stairs and clearing their corners as MB personnel were trained to do. Ochoa appeared steadfastly alert as well, but jittery. Arevalo no different, constantly on a pivot to cover the group’s rear.
With no sound, these camera feeds offered an incomplete speculation.
Everyone currently in the security room, however, had experienced these same corridors already. Except for Djevojka, they had all endured the ominous labyrinth that the Manticore had quickly become. This didn’t serve as any form of comfort while they watched, their attention torn between the monitors with the creatures from secondary labs and those spectating the convoy’s return.
Xeno carnem or homo sapien?
The odds of a head-on collision was difficult to state, mostly because those watching were generally men and women of facts, but given the situation they might be more biased. Hope was beginning to be a notion of the past, when they were the only sapient life form known to exist across several galaxies.
Now there was contest, but they couldn’t let it reach Earth. This battle had to remain in the cosmos, at least until the outcome could be determined.
Felina’s focus shifted from the men making hasty progress down the corridors to the Xeno-led carriers doing the same. Many of them bounded off the walls as they bumped into each other and resisted infighting. The only pause they experienced was when some of the carriers did sna
p at each other, and the lead Xeno turned to hiss and shriek at them, like an angry mother. This sight alone made Felina’s stomach turn out of sheer awe and terror.
Trepidation for what was coming their way.
A sentient horror.
The naturally savage.
“Is that them?” someone said behind Felina, Baxter maybe. Everyone began voicing their panics and insecurities about the situation at once. It became a free-for-all of accents, fear, and doubts. Felina felt confused but an instant later she heard the hollow clapping of distant gunfire, the reports resonating through corridors not far off.
Not just her head but her entire body spun back to face the monitors against the wall nearest the door. Behind her, the restocked Connell and Palmer arrived to gawk at the security feeds.
The convoy had encountered resistance.
Two substantially matured carriers attacked from their front, as soon as they had turned a corner. They were less than three-hundred feet from the security center. The creatures’ bodies were still experiencing change in coloration, but their skulls were malformed properly—as terrible as that sounded—and everything else matched the Xeno carnem structure except for their hands. Fingers were disproportionate, some claws larger than others, their palms twisted and misshapen.
It was becoming harder to discern between carrier and healthy specimen, which was a newfound atrocity.
Felina feared the exposure of Xeno carnem to greater masses. Earth didn’t stand a chance at this rate; the extraterrestrial strain would become the next Bubonic Plague, but with teeth and claws.
Landham’s TG-24 took care of one lashing carrier with enough ease. While kneeling back to reload the shotgun’s drum magazine shell-by-shell, Ochoa took lead with his Seighty. At this range he just swept it pendulously, hosing the other carrier with enough bullets to make it a perforated carcass. He looked back at Landham, who was already reloaded but tending to the onslaught Arevalo was facing. There was a healthy Xeno as the vanguard to a horde of maturing carriers, flooding the corridor like a materialized disease. Arevalo pocked the lead creature’s face with a few accurate bursts from his Seighty before it shrieked and receded into the throng of carriers, disappearing without confirmation of death.
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